Lottery winners are special cases, Paley, and you're right: large windfalls don't result in permanent happiness. It's usually just temporary. But, on the other hand, Americans overall have a high level of contentedness. It is difficult to discover the source of that happiness. Sure, you say that we're more religous, it must be due to that. This guy and his study show that happiness is not the whole of the equation.

I'm actually curious what you have to say about his data. I'm sure you have our own explanation as to why the more religious country (ours) has more murders, abortion, and STDs than the more secular countries in Europe. I'm going to guess that you are going to dismiss it outright.